


The Monster and The Prince

by godcomplexfics (godtiercomplex)



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Canonical Character Death, Does Kaneki Ken Dying So Sasaki Haise Can Live Count As Death, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Request Meme, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 19:03:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4031131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godtiercomplex/pseuds/godcomplexfics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In another world, there was a monster who fell in love with a prince.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Monster and The Prince

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an an ask prompt meme.

Once there was a monster who loved a prince. This Prince was not a prince by birthright, but had been adopted into the royal family for the King’s own purposes. When the Prince found out that the King had been grooming him to lead a massive genocide against the humans he had been adopted from, he revolted. The monster bound to the prince by the ties of love, followed him into war. That monster was Shuu, and the prince he loved was Ken.

Yet still, as loyal as Shuu was, because he was born of the tribe who threatened peace, the former Prince Ken did not trust him. He had him locked up once his advisors had informed him that Shuu had entered their camp. He now had his blade to Shuu’s neck, one wrong word away from cutting his head off.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you,” Ken said to him, words hard as the steel blade in his hands. “You have done nothing but live in that court your whole life, growing fat at the hands of the King, while these people starve and their lives are taken from them. Give me one reason why I should trust you.”

“Trust me?” Shuu said, “I have no reason to disobey any orders that you give to me. I am but your loyal servant, my prince, my future king. Trust me.” Shuu wisely did not say that he would never because he loved him, so desperately that even now he would be fine with dying at his hands. The only reason he clung to life was because once he was dead, he would no longer see Ken. And this monster, this knight, did not want that.

“I will fight for you, because I can see that I am wrong. That my fellow ghouls are wrong.”

Ken considered him, and Ken was all that mattered to Shuu so he focused not on the people surrounding them.

One of them said, “He could be a valuable ally.”

Another said, “He’s a perverted leecher.”

There were more negative votes against his character than anything else. Ken’s hand slipped (accident, maybe. on purpose, more likely.) and he felt blood on his neck, dripping onto his white shirt, and he grinned up at Ken, helpless before him.

“You can stay,” Ken said, wiping off his blade, “But the second I think that you will betray me, I will kill you.” Ken turned from him, and turned to the rest of his gathered allies, “Gentlemen, ladies, friends, welcome his lordship Tsukiyama who has decided to join us.”

There weren’t any mutters of discontent now. Just a sharp, “yes, prince!” and everyone went back to work. The runnings of an army planning to overtake a king were many. Ken did not look back at him, leaving him, still bleeding, on the ground.

It was a young girl by the name of Hinami who came and fetched him. She cleaned him up, and gave him coarse clothes to wear.

“You almost lost your head there!” she said, and he recognized her from the court as a young heiress whose parents had been killed. As she looked now, she no longer had the soft fragility of youth, but a roughness like a street rat. She had a firm hand as she bound his neck with bandages to stop the bleeding.

He didn’t tell her that finally getting Ken to acknowledge him, to leave his mark on him, was something that he had wanted for a long time.

“I want to talk to the prince,” he said instead, “I believe I can be a valuable source of information to him.”

“He’ll summon you when he’s ready,” Hinami said, “Put those clothes on, your shirt is caked with blood. There’s a river you can wash up at a short walk away.”

Shuu had no choice but to listen to her, and he walked to the river, worn clothes in hand. He stopped before he left the treeline, a familiar head of black in front of him. A familiar head of black all wrapped up in someone else’s embrace.

Shuu had never wanted to kill someone like he wanted to kill whoever dared touch what was his. He held still, and waited, deciding that he would not allow anything of the sort to continue on as long as he was allowed in the camp. But for as hard as he would try, Ken would never welcome him to his bed.

 

* * *

 

Before Shuu had left from castle, he had been roughly pulled aside by his attendant, and his best friend.

“You’re sick, Master,” the other man had said, “You will destroy everything if you do this. Yourself included.”

“You’re really taking his side in this?” Chie asked, “Even knowing that it will be the death of all of us? You are superior, Shuu, much more than a halfling like himself.” She did not say, Much more than a nothing like myself. Chie had been his constant human companion for too long for her to hold any illusions about what she was, but even still she made no attempts to escape as long as she was kept entertained. “I’m coming with you,” she concluded.

“No,” he said, to both of them, “I do this on my own. And Chie, I will need to keep an ear on the ground here, don’t you think? This is how I may serve him.”

Now, he watched as Chie was welcomed into the meeting tent that he was an irregular guest at. The camp was all handmade black and white tents, muddied and torn from forced retreats. Building an army did not come easily. Shuu had brought as much supplies as he could, and he sent away for more until one day, Ken had thanked him. The look in Ken’s eyes had been uneasy, uncertain, but it had thankful at the same time.

“I have some information,” she said, looking like a princess, even though her blood was filthy and common. She told them of another group who were seeking to destroy the King as well. She warned them that they were a threat to the King, but also to the general populace as well.

Ken waved off her concerns, rubbing his face, and considering things.

“I’ll look into it.”

Ken did, after the meeting was over, and Chie had been seen home. He left with a small escort, and none of them returned, including Ken. Shuu hated the Aogiri people for taking away from him what mattered most. The army of the prince marched on the encampment to rescue the missing prince.

What they found there was a changed man. His hair was bone white, and he was hardened by his experiences. He was beautiful. Shuu sank to his knees with the rest of Ken’s people once he had returned to the camp. The Aogiri had not been destroyed, but rather disbanded for now.

“We cannot let things continue like this,” Ken said, “We will kill the king.”

That night, a battle plan was laid out, and Shuu could see little hope in it succeeding. But, he believed in the hard look in Ken’s eyes, and held still his tongue.

 

* * *

 

 

The battle was fierce when it happened. Shuu stood next to Ken, along with the remainder of his advisors as they waited for any word or hope.

“I have to fight,” Ken said, looking beyond all of this, “I have to be the one to kill him.”

Shuu looked down at the valley where there was more dead than not. Where human tried to battle against the fearsome overlords who ruled the night, where his kind battled against what they had long since suppressed.

If the prince went down there, the monster knew that he would never see him again. He pleaded, outright begged for him to stay.

“Ken,” he said, voice breaking. “I would kill you rather than let you go down there.”

Ken did not take his threat seriously, and they fought until Shuu was on his stomach, reaching a hand up to Ken who looked at him sadly.

“I have to save them,” he said, and walked away, his back burning itself into Shuu’s memories.

 

* * *

 

 

The battle changed nothing. Most of Ken’s people were killed or ran to hide out. Shuu’s servants made him retreat as well, fetching him from that hillside, and dragging him to safety. He didn’t want to live, that monster, he loved his prince too much. He was bound forever by the scar on his neck, and the unheard thanks in Ken’s voice. He was trapped in his obsession and he withered away.

Ken was declared dead, and the King died soon after. A human man, named Arima, took his place. The relations between humans and the monsters did not worsen, but they did not better underneath his rule. The humans could not trust monsters who would eat them, and the monsters did not trust humans who hunted them. None of that mattered to Shuu. He was a monster who was missing a heart. He was a monster who had loved a human. He was a monster who could not accept a world in which Ken was no longer alive, and yet could not bring himself to take his own life.

He passed days, months, years, falling into an almost comatose state as he mourned. He did not eat, did nothing but cry again and again as he saw Ken walking away from him.

One day, as the monster surely thought that he had wasted enough away to die, Chie brought him a cloak that smelled faintly of Ken. Another day, she brought him a painting of Ken as he had been the day he left, only the artist had messed up and given him black roots.

He started eating again, underneath the melancholic eyes of Ken.  

And then, Chie bought him Ken. Or rather, she let someone who looked like Ken wander into his bedroom while she shut the door behind him.

“You came back,” he said, and he was so ugly, and so monstrous, and Ken was shaking his head and looking confused.

“My brother has commanded that I visit all the former nobles, Lord Tsukiyama. I am sorry to hear that you are sick. I am Prince Haise,” the man who looked like Ken said, and then sighed, “But, you might know a former me as Prince Ken.”

“A former you?” Shuu asked, and Ken, Haise touched his face.

“Ken died,” Haise said, “So that I could live. Whatever you were to Ken, whatever he was to you, that is dead as well.”

Shuu would never accept such a rejection, so he smiled, and shook his head, “You came back to me, and I will accept you no matter what.”

The prince looked at the monster, and the monster looked back at the prince. Shuu felt all the love he had in him for Ken, still there, still burning in his soul, but as he looked at Haise, he knew he could love him just as much as he had loved Ken.

“I haven’t come back to you,” Haise said, “But it’s nice to meet you, Lord Tsukiyama. I hope you feel better soon.”

Shuu held out a hand towards him, “Please, it’s late. Stay the night. Talk to me, Prince Haise. I know nothing of you, and I need to know everything.”

Haise, who was Ken, who was his prince, who was this monster’s everything, agreed after a long pause. He took Shuu’s hand.


End file.
